Search Party
by SpyKid18
Summary: Set in "Postgame Mortem".  When Logan's eleven year old houseguest runs away after their fight, he calls Veronica to help find her. Nothing like a missing kid to bring exes together.   LoVe


**A/N: Alrighty, this is set in "Postgame Mortem". This has officially become my favorite episode. Yes, the LoVe is minimal but Logan ultimately being healed by a precocious eleven year old is possibly the greatest thing ever. I thought it was adorable! This is a slight permutation of the eppie! Enjoy!**

Search Party

Logan clicks his phone off and thinks to himself that if he hadn't already been enough of an ass hole, yelling at an eleven year old probably made him a complete one. And then she ends up being from a broken home. Hell, he knew what that feels like and he cringes when he thinks about what he said to her.

"Shit," he mutters, pulling himself from bed and walking over to Dick's room. The door is closed shut and he knocks, waiting for her to answer. When there is no sound, he knocks louder and says, "Heather, you up?"

No answer and he gingerly opens the door, peaking in. His stomach drops when he finds the room empty, the bed neatly made. He scrambles into the room, frantically looking around for the girl. He looks in the bathroom, the closet, even under the bed.

"Oh no," he groans, stopping in the middle of the room and anxiously running a hand through his hair. "This is not good."

* * *

Veronica is pulling the last of Josh's prison-cookies out of the oven when her phone rings. She picks it up without looking at the caller ID and chirps, "Hello?"

"Veronica, I need your help."  
The cookie sheet slips from her hand, crashing onto the opportunely placed counter. She swears under her breath and burns her hand as she tries to gather the displaced cookies.

"I know that we broke up and you want nothing to do with me. Believe me, you've made that much clear."

The usual feeling of remorse hits her in the stomach and she murmurs, "Logan, I don't-"

"But this is bigger than us, okay? You remember that girl who was on the elevator with me?"

"The one wearing my shirt?"

"Yeah, well, we kind of got in a fight and-"

"You got in a fight with a twelve year old?"

"Eleven," he corrects, voice pained. "And she's not here, Veronica. We both kind of stormed off to our own rooms after the fight-" _How mature of you_, Veronica thinks. "And then Dick called me and the girl he married in Vegas-Melinda- told me how Heather took their parent's divorce really hard and I think what I said upset her and-"

"I'll be right there," Veronica says, frowning at her usual bad luck. She hears him sigh in relief on the other side and she tells him, "Think of places she can be, okay?"

"Okay."

"Stay calm, I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

She hangs up and turns off the oven, quickly taking the cookies and putting them on the plate with the others. Slipping on an oven mit, she picks up the cookie sheet and drops it in the sink. As she makes her way out of the kitchen she recalls one particular detail from Logan's rant and mumbles, "Dick got married?"

* * *

Logan's nerves are on the fray as he paces through the hotel room, thinking that not only has he lost what he has learned to be an emotionally compromised eleven year old, but he has also enlisted the help of his ex-girlfriend whom he is very much still in love with. Oh, and there is that whole song dedication thing and the fact that when he looks at her he can't breathe.

There is a knock on the door and he hopes futilely that it will be Heather. The eleven year old will be there when he opens the door and he can avoid the whole Veronica part of the equation. He'll call her and they'll laugh at how silly eleven year old girls can act. Instead, he opens it and there is only Veronica.

"You look like hell," Veronica notes, walking past him into the room. She looks around, her thumbs hooked on the loops of her belt buckles. "Mind if I look in the room?"

He shakes his head and follows her into Dick's room. She combs through the area, looking for things that he presumes he wouldn't be able to see. After a while she turns to him and asks, "Do you know any places she could be? Where she would go?"

"No, she's an eleven year old in a foreign town," Logan says, silently berating himself for losing his control and bickering with her. "She could be anywhere."

"Well, we'll start with places around here. If I were an eleven year old I probably would go to a coffee place or café. Somewhere I could sit for a while. We'll look into a few and go from there."

He notices that she avoid making eye contact, instead looking at a spot just to the right of his head. He imagines it can't be easy for her to be back there, amidst all the memories. He knew it wasn't easy for him. Every turn, every piece of furniture reminds him of her, of their time together. As they walk out he reaches forward and brushes her arm as he tells her, "Thank you for doing this, Veronica."

"I find people," she says simply. "It's what I do."

"Yeah, but I know you probably would rather not do it for me."

They walk side by side toward the elevator and she chances a glance toward him. He isn't looking at her, eyes trained on the elevator, and a wave of disappointment settles. Shaking it off, she crosses her arms over her chest and answers, "I'm more than happy to help you, Logan."

"Think we'll find her before Dick and her sister gets back?"

Veronica thinks of spending an entire day with Logan and mutters, "I hope so."

* * *

The first place gives no yield. The second is much the same. The third is similarly uneventful and by the fourth, Logan is so despondent that he nearly forgets the extraordinary awkwardness between him and Veronica. It all seems rather inconsequential now, in comparison to him losing someone's eleven year old sister.

"This is all my fault!" he rails. "I didn't think, like I always do, and now it is _my_ fault that an eleven year old is lost in Neptune!"

"Logan, we'll find her," Veronica says. They are on the street and she looks around for any other possible place within walking distance. "There has to be something that we've missed-something we haven't thought of."

"There is nothing to go on," Logan says, shaking his head. "This is bad. This is really bad."

She turns toward him and coaches, "Just think, Logan. There's something you're forgetting. You know what it is you just-"

"Don't remember it?" he finishes. "Gee, thanks Veronica. That's real helpful."

His sarcasm is familiar and she easily fields it. "Think, Logan. Did you talk about any places? Anything that could give us a clue?"

He is poised to give another snarky response but stops short when he recalls a conversation he shared with Heather. They had been debating the different ice cream shoppes in Neptune and he blurts out, "Zips and Amy's."

"She has a sweet tooth?"

"We talked about them. She-" he surges forward, gesturing for Veronica to follow him. "She said Zips had the best ice cream, I said Amy's did."

"Wow, riveting conversation."

"What else do you talk to an eleven year old about?" he tosses in her general direction.

"Good point," she concedes, climbing into his car. "So, where to first? Zips?"

Logan nods, pulling quickly out of his parking space. Once onto the main highway, his speed steadily increases and he notices Veronica presses herself back into her seat, her fingers curled tightly around the armrest. Checking himself, he slows down accordingly.

It's about a ten minute drive to Zips and the silence between them is deafening. Logan is focusing on the road while Veronica pretends to find the passing scenery fascinating.

"You can put on the radio, if you want," he offers.

When she answers her voice is strained. "I'm fine."

"Okay." Another silence falls like a partition between them, but he attempts to reach through it as he slowly says, "Speaking of radio, Heather called in that song last night. It wasn't me."

He watches her from the corner of his eye and notices a small grin register on her face. "She's a lively one, isn't she?"

He chuckles a bit and says, "Yeah, she is."

"And I figured it wasn't you," Veronica says. "You're not really the grand gesture type."

He smarts at that last statement and says, "That's not entirely true."

"It's not a criticism," Veronica says casually. "Just an observation. You're more into subtlety."

"I wasn't too subtle when I left you that damn message," he mumbles. "Which, might I add you never returned?"

Veronica senses the accusation and decides to pay lip service accordingly as she retorts, "Oh, you mean the drunken message where you make some quip about me snooping through someone's garbage?"

Logan looks over at her quickly, failing to see the car stopping short in front of them. Veronica yells out as he breaks suddenly, just missing the car. Her voice is hoarse as she bites out, "Can you please keep your eyes on the road?"

"I did more than drunkenly rail on that message, Veronica. I poured my heart out. I said a lot of stuff that could be read as emasculating, you know." Veronica is silent and while at first it puzzles him, he reads what is behind her lack of rebuttal fairly quickly. "You didn't listen to the whole message, did you?"

Softly Veronica says, "Nope."

"I can't blame you, I guess. I was pretty drunk so that first part was probably pretty bad." She nods her head. "I meant it all, though. The last part, I mean. The part you didn't listen to."

Veronica thinks about how she had hastily deleted the message when her dad walked in and latently wished she had simply hung up. She had wanted to finish the message. Even beyond content, it had been nice to hear his voice again. Angry or not, she still loved him.

He pulls into the Zips parking lot and parks near the front. As he climbs out he offers, "You can stay here."

"Not happening," she answers, opening her door and hopping out. She follows him as they walk in, both of them looking for the young girl. Veronica spots her near the back and recognizes yet another one of her shirts. "Did she just raid all the clothes I left at your place?"

Logan strides over to Heather who is looking at the two of them with a wide grin. She stands up when they approach and breathes out, "It worked!"

"What are you talking about?" Logan demands. "And how did you get here? Actually-no-what are you doing here? What makes you think it's okay to just leave without telling me? The world's kind of a dangerous place, you know."

"I wanted to bring you two together," Heather says simply, beaming as she looks between Logan and Veronica. "We all know you still love her and I could tell from the elevator ride that she loves you, too. I wanted to help-"

"Yeah, you helped enough," Logan says, thinking of the radio call.

"I figured you would call Veronica to help find me!" Heather gushes, her chipper mood untouched by Logan's generally morose one. "And you did! See, it worked!"

Logan frowns and says, "No, actually-"

"I think you owe this one some ice cream," Veronica interrupts, turning to Logan. "And you're paying."

"I am?" he asks slowly.

"Yes and get me a cone too, while you're at it. My usual."

"Mint chocolate chip for me," Heather instructs.

Veronica plops down onto the seat beside Heather and gives her a friendly grin. "So Heather, how _did_ you get here?"

Logan's stomach clenches when he hears Heather happily reply that she had taken a cab. Just thinking about all the ways that could have gone wrong makes him uneasy. He takes his place in line and casually looks back at the table. His breath catches when he finds Veronica looking at him, her lips pressed into a soft grin.

* * *

"You finished?" Logan asks, glancing at Heather's half-eaten bowl of ice cream. She pats her stomach and nods. "Yeah, I sort of had some before you got here."

"More for me," Veronica says jauntily, reaching over Logan's arm and grabbing the bowl. Her arm brushes his as she moves her arm back.

"We should head back then. Your sister and Dick will be back soon."

"Can I use the bathroom first?" Heather asks. Logan nods and she hops from her seat, moving rather quickly toward the bathroom. An idea occurs to him and he smirks as he says, "I think she is giving us some alone time."

"She's a smart one," Veronica remarks.

"Is that so?"

She puts down the spoon and meets his eyes, calmly announcing, "I want to talk to you about something."

"Okay."

"I'm letting go of my anger," she says simply. Not fully understanding where she is going with this, he nods encouragingly for her to continue. "I talked to someone recently, and I realized that the anger doesn't help me. The resentment, the steel, all it does is make me into this hard person that I don't want to be. So, I'm moving on."

He drops his eyes then, understanding a bit too well where she is going with this whole spiel. Her words leave little need for interpretation and although he knows he probably deserves it, he wishes she wouldn't tell him. Eyes trained on the table he tells her, "I'm happy for you."

"I want us back," she says softly and his eyes snap to hers. "If we're speaking of letting go of things, you probably should be the first thing, but I don't want to. I can't, in fact, because even though you are the reason for about half my general anger, I can't imagine a future without you."

He reaches for her hands blindly and relief floods his chest when her hands curl around his own. Running the tips of his fingers along her palm he says, "I can't imagine one without you, either."

"We're going to have to take things slow," she warns him. "I can leave it behind but I can't pretend it didn't happen. It's going to take us some time to get back to how things were."

"However long it takes," Logan promises. She smiles softly and he leans in to kiss her, stopping with his lips a breath from hers when he sees Heather peaking at them from behind a corner. He laughs softly and says, "We have an audience."

Veronica turns, laughing as she offers Heather a small wave. She pats Logan's leg and says, "Alright, looks like the third party has returned from the water closet. Back to the Neptune Grand, partner."

The three head back to Logan's car, Logan opening the doors for the two ladies before climbing in himself.. When he starts the engine, Heather asks from the backseat, "So, did my plan work? Are you two back together?"

Logan glances at Veronica and she answers, "Yes, I would say your plan was a roaring success."

"See!" Heather trills, grinning wide. "I _told_ you that song request would work!"

"Oh yeah," Veronica agrees, shooting Logan a small grin. "It was totally the song request."

**A/N: And...end scene! So, did you guys like it?**


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